


a monument to our love (i built it brick by brick)

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: A study of the story, Episode: s02e02 The Cave of Two Lovers, F/M, Omashu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:59:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7145630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Death is never beautiful, but some things do shine brightest in the dark. Some things do grow like this, underground, away from the sun? between the trembling crowd.<em></em></em><br/> </p><p>Oma, after Shu. To build a city you have to bend the ground, the war, the people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a monument to our love (i built it brick by brick)

 

 

 

[...] But one day the man didn't come. He died in the war between their two villages. Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her Earthbending power. She could have destroyed them all, but instead, she declared the war over. Both villages helped her build a new city where they would live together in peace. The woman's name was Oma and the man's name was Shu. The great city was named Omashu as a monument to their love.

_Season 2, Episode 2, The Cave of Two Lovers_

 

 

 

It starts small, so maybe that's why it takes so long to be noticed. It starts with the lower level soldiers, mean cannon fodder boys, so that's probably why.

A scout that never comes back at the end of the shift. A drunk archer, a grumpy cook go missing. On the other side of the war, the other side of the mountain, a whole weeks rations is gobbled down by the ground itself, or so the guard on duty claims. He's whipped bloody. That night he disappears. The whispers only grow after that. Grumpy whitebeards start leaving offering for the spirit and they're laughed away. More and more ancestors are prayed on both sides of this long, stupid war.

Men fought, and bled, and died. The mountain waited between battles, didn't mind the taste of copper. For a time, the pebbles are quiet.

It is only when the resident gang of ruffians go missing that anyone with power begins to care. It's one thing when the peasant rabble gets themselves kidnapped by the spirits, another entirely when the sons of generals and colonels sink like water on hungry soil. A guru is called, then a shaman, then a witch. All of them chant and order and plead with the mountain to spit back its prey. No

The mountain is deaf to their complains.

They start hunting down the badger moles. That's when it gets ugly. They start planning for one last battle, high on the mountain top, and it got uglier still.

The mountain was angry now, see. It was grieving and resentful and angry at the humans. The badgermoles, it must be said, were her friends. They were already her subjects at the time, but they were her friends first and still, and she loved them. She always would.

It swallowed them all. Swallowed, just like that, gnawed at it with its boulder-teeth and quicksand-tongue. Enemy soldiers blamed each other, villagers cowered and yelled. Nobody could see anything in the dark. That did not stay the blades in the first great confusion. War screams turned to wails turned to cries. They echoed in the tortuous tunnels.

Eventually some voices of reason prevailed, if barely. An old widow from the east side of the mountain, known for her sharp mind; a crooked carpenter from the western side, respected for wisdom. Neither of them had children anymore. They made themselves heard in the cacophony of the mob, called council between their own. They would split in two groups, for the two feuding people, the armies in front and behind, the villagers in the middle. They separated, and each called good riddance at the other's heels.

Soon it became clear that the place was cursed. It had to be, for the tunnels to change by themselves, for forks and crumbling stones and stampeding badger moles to appear from every corner. It is a labyrinth, nothing natural about it. Almost man-made, but that's just nonsense, and anyway it was too dark to care if it was the work of a spirit or not.

The careful marching becomes a sprint, the rear is lost, villagers are lad astray in the encroaching shadows. The very path beneath their feet started to warp and rumble and they ran, ran from the earthquake, the pressing rage of the stone.

They all, lost and wounded alike, found themselves in a big cave, deep in the mountain's womb. Though most torches had been blown out, there in the flickering light came shouts of joy. The swallowed soldiers from both sides were reunited in the dark, even as the last light blew out. The walls pressed closer; just reunited loved ones pressed each other closer still.

The mountain was angry now, see, mad and furious and blind, but it had loved humans once. It had loved a human once. Some say it had been even been a human once, but that was before. This is now, with dying people crying, mothers holding children, couples kissing for the last time. Death is never beautiful, but some things do shine brightest in the dark. It is in the mountain's dark that the blind badgermoles see best, and it took the dark for the bling mountain people to see their mistakes. Some things do grow like this, underground, away from the sun and between the trembling crowd. In that moment you wouldn't have known who belonged to which village. In that moment they did not care. 

The mountain was angry now, you see. Bereft things always are. Bereft people always want to bring down the sky and tear up the ground. It does not follow that they do it, even when they _can_. Even if perhaps they should.

The rumbling stops. The prisoners cease crying, still, listen. Around them, and as the walls stutter away, the great cave shine bright, shines mountain-green. In the new light they see, and understand. It is not a cave. It is a tomb.

After, the war is over. It has to be, when the old widow and the old carpenter stagger together out into the sunlight, high to the would-be battleground, where their children had once met and loved. After, the grieved, and there was peace among men. Maybe among mountains as well, but that's a bit more ambitious.

Few people remember the message carved into the cave's walls. It is an old story, the kind with blurred, faulty beginnings, so nobody cares overmuch these days. There's a city on top of the wall today, with strange people in it, stone-shapers with dirt-crusted toes. All their lords are great of talent and greater of will, and all of them must convince the mountain of their worth.

The mountain is scrupulous, as mountains are in general known to be. It is, however, known for having a soft spot for sad love stories, which is rather uncommon among people, much less mountains.

It ends big. Big enough to never really end, but then, earth is durable like that; it outlasts wars and love, and cities too, one day. Mountains are devoted like that.

 

 


End file.
